How to Migrate to Singular from Another MMP

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Kelsey Lee
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Before migrating to Singular from a different MMP, it's crucial to create a migration plan. This guide will help you move to Singular smoothly with minimal data loss/corruption.

Guide for UA Managers
Prerequisites

Background: SAN vs. Non-SAN Partners

Before you begin, it's essential to understand the differences between how MMPs work with Self-Attributing Networks (SANs) (such as Facebook, Twitter, Apple Search Ads, or Google Ads) vs. integrations with non-SANs, such as Vungle or IronSource.

Non-Self-Attributing Networks: Self-Attributing Networks:
  • Non-SAN partners cannot support two MMPs for the same campaign. To keep data clean, you will want to fully transition all campaigns at the same time. 
  • You can configure install and event postbacks to non-SANs in advance, before migrating your campaigns.
  • Singular will only start sending postbacks to non-SANs after you set tracking links live on the network (the exception is if you have enabled "Send All" for installs or events, in which case Singular will start to send organic events).
  • Some SANs support deduping installs, in-app events, or both. This means some SANs can support running with two MMPs, some cannot, and some can support two MMPs for installs only. 
  • Once Postbacks are configured for SANS partners, Singular will start sending postbacks for the configured events (installs and/or events) immediately. 

First Migration Steps for All Networks

1

Determine an Attribution Switchover Date

When do you want to switch marketing efforts to Singular's MMP? 

This will be when you set SANS postbacks live and ask your non-SAN partners to transition campaigns to track with Singular tracking links.
2

Coordinate with Marketing Partners

To keep marketing data as tidy as possible, coordinate with your marketing partners to migrate to Singular in as short a window as possible. 

Notify your partners that you are planning to transition from your current MMP to Singular. 

Share any migration timeline details you have and ask if the partner has any best practices to share. 
3

Decide on Tracking and Postback Settings

Document the following to make it easy to transfer these details and implement them in Singular:

Attribution Types and Windows:

  • Click-Through Attribution: lookback window
  • View-Through Attribution: enabled or disabled, lookback window
  • Specialty Lookback Windows: event windows, deterministic vs. probabilistic windows, and any other special requirements.

Re-Engagement Tracking:

  • Enabled or disabled?
  • Do you require deep links? Deferred deep links?

Events:

  • In addition to the install event, which in-app events do you want to send to partners? How do the events map per partner? Each network has worked with Singular's Integration team to provide event naming conventions to map your SDK or S2S event to allow the network to have standardized reporting across all of their clients (your networks can provide the event mappings).
  • Do you want to send postbacks for all installs and/or in-app events to your partners (including non-attributed ones)? Note that not all networks support this feature.

Partner keys/IDs/passwords: Many partners require a key/ID/password to link Singular with your specific advertiser account, and some require a different key per app (e.g., the Facebook App ID and the Google Link ID). You can usually find the keys on your partner's dashboard.

Next Steps: Migrating Non-SANs

1

Configure Partners

Start configuring your non-SAN partners with the considerations you decided on per partner earlier. You will not be able to generate a tracking link until you've configured a postback for the relevant partner.

For details, see the Partner Configuration FAQ.
2

Create Tracking Links

Once you have configured postbacks, you are ready to create tracking links using Singular Links technology.

You can create a link per campaign or a link per partner per OS if the partner has a macro to pass the campaign name within the link. Your Customer Success Manager will be able to confirm this for you if you have questions. 

When creating your links, be sure to implement any specialty settings you decided on earlier.

For details, see the Singular Links FAQ.
3

Share Details with Network

Determine how you'd like to share your tracking links with your partners - via email, a Google Doc, etc.

Share tracking links (both click-through and view-through, if applicable), link settings, postback settings, and postback event mappings.

Share your target launch date as well as any other necessary campaign details.

Ask partners to completely transition campaigns to use Singular Links within a specific time range (before EOD) on your target launch date.
4

Test Tracking Links with Network

Ask your partners to use the tracking links to run end-to-end tests to ensure they successfully receive install and event postbacks.

If you run into issues, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or Singular Support. 

Next Steps: Migrating SANs

Each self-attributing partner has different capabilities and a unique integration with Singular, requiring different migration steps. Below you will find some guidelines and best practices, but we encourage you to consult with your network POC and discuss your migration strategy internally.

Migrating Google

1

Create postbacks in Singular (implement Link ID).
2

Import events into Google. Event counts will not be successfully counted until they are imported into Google.

  • For install tracking, import the first_open event in Google Ads.
  • Make sure first_open events are not marked "yes, include in conversions" until ready to bid on Singular!
  • For re-engagement campaigns, make sure that you import session_start (see Google's documentation).
  • Make sure you have matching events from Singular to replace all of the old MMP's events. Make sure the new event settings match the ones on the old MMP (count, category, conversion window, value).

Make sure conversion is enabled after the event populates. Conversions should be enabled by default.
3

Compare Singular's reporting to the old MMP's reporting to ensure you see similar volumes.

Note: Different MMPs have differing attribution logic that may result in slightly different attribution stats and sources.
4

Pause postbacks from the old MMP.
5

Update the bid event to Singular.
6

Finally, create new campaigns in Google.

Note that events won't show up in Google Ads until at least one conversion event occurs since setting up the configuration in Singular (not just events that are attributed to Google Ads).

Migrating Facebook

1

While the old MMP's postbacks are still live, configure Singular postbacks for installs only (no postbacks for events yet). Add the Facebook App ID to the postback configuration in the Singular UI.
2

Monitor reporting to ensure install numbers are aligned between the old MMP and Singular.

Note: Different MMPs have differing attribution logic that may result in slightly different attribution stats and sources.
3

Once you are satisfied that the install numbers align, pause the old MPP's postbacks for installs and all events to Facebook.
4

Now you can enable Singular postbacks for events. 

Migrating Twitter

1

Have the old MMP "unlink and remove" events. This will remove the old MMP's events from your ads account.

If there are multiple ad accounts, events need to be deleted from all of the accounts. 
2

Delete conversion events. Twitter only supports one MMP partner per mobile app.
3

In Twitter, set up a MACT partner with Singular.
4

Configure postbacks in Singular (including inputting the Twitter Ads account IDs) for the relevant events.

This will send data to Twitter and the mobile app conversion events will automatically appear in the Twitter Ads Manager dashboard (under Tools > Conversion Tracking).

If data is being sent successfully from Singular, the events show as "tracking."

If any events show as "dormant," further troubleshooting is required. You can reach out to your Singular Customer Success Manager or Singular Support.

Migrating Snapchat

1

Enable Singular postbacks for both installs and events. 
2

Confirm install and event counts with the Snapchat team. Snapchat can dedupe both installs and events. 
3

Once event counts are aligned, pause the old MMP's postbacks. You do not need to pause campaigns.

Migrating Apple Search Ads (ASA)

1

Singular's integration with Apple Search Ads does not require links or postbacks. In addition, Apple Search Ads can dedupe installs and events, so it can support two MMPs tracking simultaneously. 

If you've integrated the Singular SDK, once the SDK is fully implemented, Singular automatically begins tracking marketing efforts for ASA. 

If you are using Singular's Server-to-Server (S2S) solution, Singular starts tracking marketing efforts for ASA once you configure ASA tracking properly (see the developers guide for Singular S2S integration). 
2

Your old MMP will continue to track Apple Search Ads campaigns until you remove the old MMP's SDK or stop sending the S2S ASA calls to your old MMP. 

Importing Attribution Data and Dealing with the Transition Period

Singular lets you import existing attribution data from your former MMP to create a smooth transition. For more information, see the Importing Existing Attribution Data FAQ. However, imports are not possible without advertising IDs, as Singular depends on this parameter to distinguish between users.

If you don't have access to your users' advertising IDs, we suggest the following process:

  1. Pause your paid campaigns for a few days to let the data normalize.
  2. While the campaigns are paused, look at your recent average daily installs, and compare them to the daily installs now reported by Singular, which will be higher. The extra installs are existing users of your app that Singular is reporting as new installs.
  3. Once Singular installs drop to a normal level, you can restart your paid campaigns.

We also suggest making apps live in Singular as early as possible. That way, by the time you switch your campaigns to Singular, a good number of users are already tracked.

You can expect some data discrepancies in the early days. To minimize issues going forward, you can set up install postbacks to your internal BI to get the data directly in your database.

Related Articles

How to Get Started with Singular Attribution
Importing Existing Attribution Data FAQ
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